


Gloves, and other Sheddable Skins

by snarkydame



Category: Babylon 5
Genre: Character Study, Episode Related, Gen, Yuletide 2012
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-21
Updated: 2012-12-21
Packaged: 2017-11-21 20:01:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/601543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snarkydame/pseuds/snarkydame
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bester has clear, carefully crafted goals.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gloves, and other Sheddable Skins

**Author's Note:**

  * For [calapine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/calapine/gifts).



> Directly references episode 8, season 2.

The uniform was a tool, as much as anything else. Somber, respectable. Intimidating, in the right circumstances. 

In most circumstances.

He wore it as if it were his first skin. Anything else – less structured, less useful – felt like an ill-fitting disguise. He avoided street clothes. Wore them only, and only sometimes, around his daughter.

Just a thin mask, easily shed, to ease the fears of the those too poorly trained to be trusted, and those of the "normals" too unwary to know better. In the guarded privacy of his own thoughts, he allowed himself the quotation marks. "Normal" was a fast dying breed, and one he felt no nostalgia for. 

Proud as he was of the uniform, he was particularly fond of the gloves. The gloves were the most recognizable part of the uniform, and the most deceptive.

He could hear it in the thoughts of those around him, like a wake left by the uniform's passing: _Executioner_ they said. _Assassin_. _Murderer._ The degree of their fear, the virulence of their reaction, made it simple enough to categorize them: _Ally. Tool. Threat._

_Friend_ was rare, as it should be. He pitied those who threw the word around too lightly, left too much of themselves exposed. Pitied them, and used them, as was necessary.

There was no one on this station he would call friend, though there were a few who might be allies, with proper handling. And many who teetered between tool and threat, that being always a conditional assessment.

A case in point: "Mr. Garibaldi," he said, smiling blandly as he passed him in the corridor. He knew his smile unnerved the security chief – the hostility rose from him in waves, formless. Impotent. 

"Bester," Garibaldi said, voice more wary than he thought it was. He had eyes like a fox, too often trapped – they watched him as he walked on, around the curve of corridor. 

He enjoyed needling him. He seldom met people so bound as Garibaldi was, by rules and duty, and all of his own choice. Properly handled, kept at the low-level state of irritation that would cloud the judgment of a man like him, he could be useful. 

Should he go too far, threaten something more than Garibaldi's antiquated sense of fairness, and the tool might turn in his hands. If he was not cautious.

He was, always, cautious.

This corridor was quiet, nearly empty. It was a relief, not having the hum of empty, trivial thoughts surrounding him. Stations like this one, trading junctions, made him dislike staying in space. There were too many useless people crammed in too small a space, surrounded by too great a silence. It was unmanageable. Messy. Too many variables that he had no control over.

Yet, he reminded himself. That he had no control over, yet.

Honestly, he didn't see the appeal some seemed to feel in space itself – in endless travel, in exploration for the sake of exploration. Space, or more properly the raw materials of planets and the shipping routes between them, was merely a resource. It was goals that were to be valued, the ends that drove the means. Power to protect and hold on to what was rightly, naturally theirs. To build for the future of the Corps. 

As it was the only future worth building.

 

* * *

This had been a productive trip, he thought. The misguided, reactionary fugitives and their underground railroad had been derailed here – Oh, they'd find others like them, he was sure, in other places. But even small accomplishments were a step towards his desired goals.

Pity he hadn't been able to take a few of them alive. The Corps had not yet perfected a means to pull information from the dead. 

He was afraid the whole sordid business may have set relations back with Babylon 5's command crew, not that any of them were all that trustworthy before. He would have to watch them carefully. He had thought to have Ms Winters take care of that . . . 

But. There had been a moment, there in the boarding bay, where he had noticed . . . something. Something that might have been triumph, at the sight of his back, leaving the station. It was fleeting, and very faint. It may not have come from her, at all.

Talia Winters was a puzzle, he decided, sitting with his hands folded and his feet crossed in his shuttle seat. He had groomed her as an ally, had been pleased with her performance, her respect for the Corps. But lately . . . he couldn't put his finger on it.

Since she'd come to Babylon 5 something had moved in behind her eyes that he couldn't read. That was troubling enough – she wasn't strong enough to keep him from her thoughts. Not strong enough, even, to know that he was trying to reach them.

Or, she shouldn't be.

He could have imagined it – perhaps she really was that much in tune with PsyCorps doctrine.

_The Corps is Mother, the Corps is Father. I know where my loyalties lie._

Reassuring. Truth, for all that he could sense. But the motto had come so glibly, after all the slow withdrawal he had felt from her in their previous dealings on Babylon 5. 

A thought came, and he mourned it, as an artist might mourn a flawed canvas. Her loyalties may not lie where they seemed to be – she hadn't, after all, said precisely where she had placed them.

Misdirection, implication . . . They had taught her, perhaps, too well.

That was regrettable. A waste of training and potential. But not such a setback, really. They had already laid the groundwork. If one route to their goal looked treacherous, there was no need to keep following it, hoping for the best like the "normals" did, blind and deaf and ignorant. There were other ways to get what they wanted.

He indulged himself with a small sigh. She would have made a very useful ally, in the heart of unfriendly territory (for he never forgot that the station was not yet under PsyCorps control).

But no matter. 

She would instead make a very fine tool.

 

_fin_

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Gloves, and other Sheddable Skins (podfic)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8318644) by [Caveat_Lector](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caveat_Lector/pseuds/Caveat_Lector)




End file.
